Academic Staff: David McCourt

Dr. David M. McCourt B.A. (Oxon.) MPhil. (Cantab.) MRes. PhD (E.U.I.)

Lecturer

Telephone: +44 (0)114 222 0665
Fax: +44 (0)114 222 1717
Room: Elmfield 1.29
Email: d.mccourt@sheffield.ac.uk

Profile

David McCourt joined the department in October 2012 as a Lecturer in International Politics. From 2010-2012 he was a Visiting Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of California-Berkeley, after a year at the University of California-Davis as a Research Associate. He completed his PhD from the European University Institute in Florence in 2008, with a dissertation on Britain’s role in international relations since 1945. His research interests span the foreign policies of Britain, America and the European Union, sociological approaches to International Theory, and the philosophy of social science.

Teaching

David is an enthusiastic teacher with a passion for all aspects of politics and international relations. Having previously taught at San Francisco State University (courses on US foreign policy and the Politics of European Integration) and the University of California-Davis (US foreign policy and International Relations Theories), David has experience with a diverse array of students and learning styles. His principal aim is to find the best mix between teacher-led and student-led discussion, so as to generate positive shared learning experience.

During 2012-3 David will be teaching (in whole or in part):

POL383 Foreign Policy: Power and Persuasion
POL3018 Advanced Political Analysis
POL6170 Global Governance

In addition, David is currently developing a Level 2 course on US foreign policy to be offered from 2013-4.

Current Research

My primary research interests lie with the social sources of state action in international politics, with an empirical focus on the UK, US and the European Union. I currently have a book manuscript under review based on my PhD dissertation, which presented a social constructivist explanation of Britain’s puzzling maintenance of a prominent foreign policy orientation – a great power disposition in other words – long after its supposed decline in the post-war years. Distinguishing the concept of ‘role’ from the more commonly invoked notion of ‘identity’, it showed how the UK made and re-made a residual great power role through interaction with key others, most notably France and the United States. I am currently expanding this micro-level approach to state action by addressing the macro-level, through the notion of ‘great power management’ in international politics. I am also addressing its policy implications for Britain in light of the ongoing defence review.

At the same time as I address foreign policy, however, my research also reflects on the philosophical underpinnings of political inquiry, with a particular focus on the nature of non-neo-positivist research. My next project aims to assess the potential and pitfalls of a rehabilitation of Aristotle’s notion of ‘phronesis’ as a form of practical knowledge of international politics.

Key Publications

• ‘What’s at Stake in the Historical Turn? Theory, Practice, and Phronēsis in International Relations’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 41, 1, (2012): 23-42.
• ‘The Roles States Play: A Meadian Interactionist Approach’, Journal of International Relations and Development 13, 3, (2012): 370-92.
• ‘Role-Playing and Identity Affirmation in International Politics: Britain’s Reinvasion of the Falklands, 1982’, Review of International Studies, 37, 4 (2011): 1599-1621.
• ‘Rethinking Britain’s Role in the World for a New Decade: The Limits of Discursive Therapy and the Promise of Field Theory’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 13, 2 (2011): 145-64.

View Dr McCourt's full list of publications.

PhD supervision

David is keen to supervise research students in the following areas (broadly conceived). He is particularly interested in supervising students who hope to combine deep theoretical and meta-theoretical understanding of International Relations with sustained empirical research:

• Foreign policy (alone or in comparison) of UK, US, and Europe;
• Sociological approaches to IR (constructivism, English School, sociology of science approaches, e.g. Bourdieusian field theory, Foucauldian approaches).